Vegetarian Diets for Pregnancy and Children

Ask the Experts!

“Don’t kids need milk to be healthy?”

Humans
are the only creatures that drink milk from the mother of
another species. It’s as unnatural for a child to drink the
milk of a cow as it is for a dog to nurse from a giraffe!
Human children have no nutritional requirements for cow’s milk
and grow up healthy and strong without it. Cow’s milk (and the
products made from it) is laced with foreign, frequently
allergy-inciting, bovine protein and often contains
hydrocarbon pesticides and other chemical contaminants, as
well as health-endangering saturated fat. Clinical experience
suggests that cow’s milk is linked to numerous common health
problems (runny noses, allergies, ear infections, recurrent
bronchitis, asthma, etc.) that often keep people returning to
their doctors’ offices, instead of to their jobs or
classrooms. Parents should feel good about giving their
children the many nutritious, tasty, nondairy alternatives
instead.

A healthy plant-based diet is the perfect solution for these vital
stages of life.

Pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and children benefit from a
vegetarian diet. All are especially sensitive to dietary dangers, so it
makes extra good sense for them to avoid the fats, drugs, hormones,
pesticides, and other pitfalls of meat and dairy products.

Pregnant Women

Vegan women are generally healthier than their carnivorous and
dairy consuming counterparts and are therefore already well on their way to
trouble-free, easy pregnancies.

A study of 1,700 pregnancies at The
Farm, a large vegan community in Tennessee, showed that vegan
mothers-to-be have a record of safety that would delight
obstetricians.

Only one in 100 women delivered their babies by
Caesarean section, and in 20 years, there was only one case of
pre-eclampsia (a condition involving hypertension, fluid retention,
urinary protein loss, and excessive weight gain), which occurs in at least
2 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. Other studies have found similar
results.

Special Needs During Pregnancy

All pregnant women need to consume extra protein. There’s plenty to be
found in plant foods such as tofu, tempeh, beans, nut butters, and mock
meats like veggie burgers and soy sausage, and these foods don’t come with
the artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat found in animal
products.

For calcium, pregnant women should eat plenty of green
leafy vegetables such as broccoli or kale. The calcium from most green
vegetables is actually more absorbable than the calcium in cow’s milk.
Another reason to avoid cow’s milk: The protein in it can cross the
placenta and even enter a woman’s breast milk, possibly sparking the
production of antibodies that lead to insulin dependent diabetes. Other
plant foods rich in calcium include soy milk, almonds, figs, blackstrap
molasses, sesame seeds, tahini, and calcium fortified fruit
juices.

Expectant mothers also should consume plenty of iron, folic
acid, and vitamins, including D and B12—all of which a well-balanced vegan
diet and routine prenatal vitamins will provide.

Vegetarian Children

“Well-planned vegan diets are appropriate for all stages of the
lifecycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy,
childhood, and adolescence”
—The American Dietetic Association’s position paper on
vegetarianism

It’s never too early to learn healthy eating habits. According to a
study in The New England Journal of Medicine, at least 60 percent
of children and young adults have early athero-sclerotic
damage.

Wholesome plant-based foods make for strong, healthy bodies
with a great head start in life.

In the seventh edition of his
world famous Baby and Child Care, America’s most respected
pediatrician, the late Dr. Benjamin Spock, recommends that parents raise
their children on a vegan diet. “We now know that there are harmful
effects of a meaty diet,” wrote Spock.

“Children who grow up
getting their nutrition from plant foods rather than meats have a
tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop weight
problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancer ... I no
longer recommend dairy products ... [T]here was a time when cow’s milk was
considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience,
has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation.” Many
children are subtly or violently allergic to milk proteins. Sniffles and
intestinal distress dismissed as colds and colic can actually be signs of
lactose intolerance. Pediatricians often find that chronic ear infections
and respiratory problems are aggravated when milk is part of a child’s
diet.

Drinking milk has also been linked to asthma and intestinal
bleeding and is suspected of triggering juvenile diabetes, a disease that
causes blindness and other serious effects. Some children’s bodies reject
cow’s milk protein as a foreign substance and produce high levels of
antibodies to fend off this “invader.”

Unfortunately, these
antibodies also destroy the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas,
leading to diabetes.

Children can get all the calcium they need
from plant foods like broccoli, chickpeas, almonds, black beans, tahini,
dried figs, collards, kale, cornbread, tofu, and fortified soy milk and
orange juice—without the risk of developing serious health problems that
could plague them for a lifetime.

Expert Advice

All the protein and other nutrients needed for growth and health are
found in plant products, so don’t feel pressured by well-meaning relatives
or uninformed doctors. There are excellent books written by physicians and
parents that make it easy to follow good examples: